We Were Made of Unbreakable Steel (Somehow We Broke Anyway)
by Sealure
Summary: The deeper the bond, the better you fight. And me and my brother…We were about as close as you could get. We thought that would be enough. We were wrong. NO SLASH FAMILY FEELS ONLY T FOR DEATH AND WAR
1. Of Corroded Steel and Broken Souls

**So, me and my brother were watching Pacific Rim the other night. And then this happened.**

 **I know, I know, I'm supposed to be working on chap 9 of I'll Leave the Love, but this idea just...kinda briefly took over. On the bright side, this is only one movie as opposed to a series with six seasons, so it should be over pretty quick. I'm going to try to update this thing weekly, probably on Thursdays.**

 **This is set in the Pacific Rim universe, so it will follow the course of the movie. I just put the Voltron characters in because I love to torture them.**

 **WARNINGS: minor character death. Battle scenes, wee bits of PTSD.**

 **SPOILERS: Pacific Rim. The entire movie.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own Voltron or Pacific Rim. There's a fair bit of word-for-word dialogue in this chapter in particular, just because it's explaining what's happening, but after this one, I keep the gist of what was said but change the wording a lot.**

 **I am going to go ahead and give you the character list, though, just to make it a little simpler for you:**

 **PACIFIC RIM AU CHARACTER LIST:**

· **Marshall Stacker Pentecost—Alfor Castle**

· **Hannibal Chau—Iverson**

· **Ops Tendo Choi—Matt Holt**

· **Gypsy Danger**

o **Raleigh Beckett—Lance McClain**

o **Yancy Beckett—Carlos McClain**

o **Mako Mori—Allura Castle**

· **Eureka Striker**

o **Chuck Hansen—Keith Kogane**

o **Herk Hansen—Takashi Shirogane**

· **Research Division**

o **Dr. Newton Geiszler—Ezor**

o **Gottlieb—Slav**

· **Cherno Alpha**

o **Lt. A. Kaidanovsky—Ken "Tex" Kogane**

o **Sasha Kaidanovsky—Krolia Kogane**

· **Crimson Typhoon**

o **Triplet #1—Kolivan Marmora**

o **Triplet #2—Thace Marmora**

o **Triplet #3—Ulaz Marmora**

· **Mechanics/Technologics/Engineering**

o **Head Mechanical Engineer—Hunk Garrett**

o **Head Tech Engineer—Pidge Gunderson (Katie Holt)**

o **Head of the Department—Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe**

 **So!**

 **HERE WE GO!**

* * *

 _Of Corroded Steel and Broken Souls_

* * *

 **Kaiju: (Japanese) Giant Beast**

 **Jaeger: (German) Hunter**

* * *

 _ **When I was a kid, whenever I'd feel small or lonely, I'd look up at the stars. I wondered if there was life up there.**_

 _ **Turns out I was looking in the wrong direction.**_

 _ **When alien life entered our world, it was from deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, a fissure between two tectonic plates. A portal between dimensions.**_

 _ **The Breach.**_

 _ **I was twelve when the first Kaiju made land in San Francisco. By the time tanks, jets, and missiles took it down six days and thirty-five miles later, three cities were destroyed. Tens of thousands of lives were lost.**_

 _ **We mourned our dead, memorialized the attack, and moved on.**_

 _ **And then, only six months later, the second attack hit Manilla.**_

 _ **And then the third one hit Cavo.**_

 _ **And then the fourth.**_

 _ **And then we learned…**_

 _ **This was not gonna stop.**_

 _ **This was just the beginning.**_

 _ **We needed a new weapon. The world came together, pooling its resources and throwing aside old rivalries for the sake of the greater good. To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own.**_

 _ **The Jaeger Program was born.**_

 _ **There were setbacks at first. The neural load to interface with the Jaeger proved too much for a single pilot. A two-pilot system was implemented, left hemisphere, right hemisphere of pilot control.**_

 _ **We started winning, Jaegers stopping Kaiju everywhere. But the Jaegers were only as good as their pilots. So Jaeger pilots turned into rockstars. Danger turned into propaganda, Kaijus into toys.**_

 _ **We got really good at it.**_

 _ **Winning.**_

 _ **Then…**_

 _ **Then it all changed.**_

* * *

Lance McClain, nineteen-year-old Jaeger pilot, was dragged from a deep, sound sleep by the dreaded sound of Kaiju alarms.

 _Gipsy Danger report to Bay 08, level A-42. Kaiju alert. Breach movement. Kaiju attack imminent,_ said the AI system of the Shatterdome _. Code name: Knifehead. Category: Three._

He toppled out of his bunk, ripping off his tank-top.

"Carlos!" he yelled, scrambling around in his cupboard to find his under-armor. "Carlos, get up, you perezoso!"

There was a muffled groan from the top bunk, and Lance rolled his eyes with enough force that he was temporarily concerned they might fall out of his head.

"Get _up,_ hermano," he repeated, pulling himself up so he was at eye level with his twenty-four-year-old brother's unconscious form and slapping his pillow to wake him up. "Movement in the Breach! We're being deployed!"

Carlos groaned again, his bright blue eyes cracking open and locking onto Lance's matching blue orbs.

"Alright, alright, I'm up," he moaned, rolling out of bed and only just managing to land on his feet. "What size is this thing? I'm hearing a lot of alarms."

"Yeah," Lance shot him a wild grin, dragging his under-armor out of the cabinet and hopping on one foot to get it on. "It's a three, Carlos. And it's the biggest one yet."

"Oh, great," Carlos rolled his eyes.

"Codename: Knifehead," Lance said dramatically, and his brother snorted.

"That…is a really awful name. What time is it?"

"Two," Lance answered, pulling on his top.

"AM?!" Carlos turned to look at him like it was his fault.

"Yup!" the younger McClain answered cheerfully with a laugh. "What do you say?" he held up his fist. "Fifth notch in the belt?"

Carlos waved his hand in Lance's general direction, too tired to actually aim for his fist.

Somebody banged on the door. "Come on, McClains! Time for the drop!"

Carlos went for the bathroom as Lance reached for his jacket.

"Hey, kid!" the older boy called.

"Yeah?" Lance twisted, and Carlos' smile widened in that way it did so rarely now, since they'd lost their family in the fifth Kaiju attack.

"Don't get cocky."

He slammed the door before Lance could throw his dirty socks at him.

* * *

 _ **You know before all this, you wouldn't have picked my brother Carlos and me for heroes.**_

 _ **No chance.**_

 _ **We were never star athletes, never at the top of the class. But we could hold our own in a fight. And it turns out we had a unique skill:**_

 _ **We were Drift compatible.**_

* * *

"Alright, let's get them suited up!" yelled the head technician.

Lance and Carlos stood still as the aides and mechanics ran around them, clipping their armor in place, double and triple-checking every alignment.

The exoskeletons clicked into the back of their armor, Gipsy Danger's symbol proudly stamped on their pauldrons.

They grinned at each other before they pulled their helmets on, the viewscreens clearing in moments. They marched single file into Gipsy's head, and the harnesses came down from the ceiling. The brothers stepped up to their respective sides of the cockpit, their feet securely locking into place on the floor.

The aides ran around some more, attaching all the wires and making sure everything was connected and working the way it was supposed to.

Their helmet comms whirred to life.

" _Good morning, Gipsy boys!"_ said the cheerful voice of their operator, Matthew Holt.

"Matt, what's happening, my man!" Lance said with a wide grin.

"How'd that date with Allison go last night, Mr. Holt?" Carlos put in with a smirk. The operator was a good-hearted guy who sometimes had trouble finding a date, and the McClain boys _loved_ to tease him about it.

Matt was grinning, they could tell. " _Oh, she loved me. Her boyfriend—not so much."_

Lance had to laugh. "You're gonna get your butt kicked," he informed the operator.

" _A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, brother,"_ was Matt's cheerful response.

" _Engage drop, Mr. Holt."_

The stern voice of their Marshall, Alfor Castle, had both McClain boys snapping to attention.

" _Engaging drop, sir!"_ Matt said smartly. _"Marshall Castle on deck. Secure the Conn-Pod. Getting ready for drop."_

Carlos reached out and flicked his authorization switch. "Release for drop," he commanded.

"Gipsy Danger, ready for the big drop," Lance said, completing the two-part authorization sequence.

The technicians filed out, and a minute later, one banged on the door.

"Conn-Pod door lock secure!" the techie shouted.

The brothers grinned at each other.

A few moments later, Gipsy's head plunged down.

"Here we go!" Carlos said with satisfaction.

"Yeah!" whooped Lance. "Let's go!"

" _Coupling confirmed, sir,_ " Matt said as the head connected smoothly to the shoulders.

" _Engage pilot-to-pilot protocol,_ " the Marshall ordered briskly.

" _Engaging now,_ " Matt said.

 _Pilot to pilot connection protocol sequence,_ Gipsy's AI announced. _Gipsy launch, Bay 6._

Gipsy powered up, and the bay doors opened to reveal the raging storm outside the Shatterdome of Anchorage, Alaska.

"Gipsy Danger, ready and aligned, sir," Carlos said, flipping on the last few manual switches above his head. Lance easily copied him from across the cockpit.

" _McClains, this is Marshall Alfor Castle. Prepare for neural handshake,"_ the Marshall ordered.

" _Commencing in fifteen seconds, boys,_ " Matt said seriously. _"Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve._ "

Carlos grinned at his little brother as Matt kept counting down.

"Ready to get shoved into my head, kid?" he teased.

"Oh, please, after you," Lance shot back. "Age before beauty, old man."

Carlos laughed out loud.

 _Neural handshake,_ Gipsy's AI said. _Initiated._

* * *

 _ **The Drift. Jaeger tech.**_

 _ **Based on DARPA jet fighter neural systems. Two pilots mind-melding through memories with the body of a giant machine. The deeper the bond, the better you fight.**_

 _ **And me and my brother…**_

 _ **We were about as close as you could get.**_

 _ **We thought that would be enough.**_

 _ **We were wrong.**_

* * *

Lance closed his eyes as he was swept into his brother's mind, their shared and individual memories meshing and blending until they couldn't tell one from the other.

He could feel his brother's lingering sleepiness, his will to serve his country, his determination to save the innocent people who were depending on them, and his love for his little brother.

That last one made him smile.

" _Neural handshake strong and holding,_ " Matt reported. He scoffed quietly. _"What a shocker._ "

The McClain boys grinned.

"We heard that," they said in unison.

Matt groaned. _"Of course you did."_

"Right hemisphere, calibrating," Carlos said.

"Left hemisphere, calibrating," Lance replied easily.

Gipsy slammed her left fist into her right palm, her pilots' signature gesture to show that she was ready for action.

" _Gentlemen,_ " the Marshall said. _"Your orders are to hold the Miracle Mile off Anchorage, copy?"_

"Copy that, sir," the brothers said in unison.

Then Lance's eyes were drawn to his display. Carlos frowned, seeing the problem through his eyes.

"Sir," Lance said. "There's still a civilian vessel in the gulf that—"

" _Gentlemen_ ," Alfor cut him off. " _You're protecting a city of two million people. You will not risk those lives for a boat that holds ten. Am I clear?"_

"Yes, sir," Carlos said, sliding as much sarcasm as he possibly could into the statement. He rolled his eyes at Lance. He switched off the comms. "Man, let's _go._ "

Lance looked at him. "You know what I'm thinking."

"I'm _in your brain_ ," Carlos deadpanned. " _Of course_ I know what you're thinking."

Lance grinned. "Care to go fishing on this lovely morning, brother mine?"

Carlos' mouth pulled up in a smirk. "You're an idiot. Let's do it."

* * *

 _ **If you asked me, I could never tell you exactly what happened that morning. It was so dark, and the seas were raging all around us. Lightning lit the sky, and the thunder was so loud, Gipsy's couplings were rattling.**_

 _ **I do remember that we saved those fishermen.**_

 _ **I remember Carlos, unloading blast after blast from his Plasmacaster into the thing's chest.**_

 _ **I remember it sinking beneath the waves.**_

 _ **I remember thinking that we'd won.**_

* * *

" _Gipsy!"_ the Marshall didn't sound angry that they'd left their post anymore. He sounded afraid. " _We're still reading Kaiju signature!"_

"What?!" Carlos shouted.

" _It's still alive!"_ Matt yelled. _"It's still alive!"_

" _Get the boat and get out of there!"_ Marshall Castle bellowed. " _Do you hear me?! Pick up the boat and get out of there_ _ **now!**_ _"_

They turned to obey, but before they had taken one step, the Kaiju exploded from the ocean.

* * *

 _ **I remember when it ripped my arm off. Well, not mine, exactly, but in the Drift, it sure felt like it was mine.**_

* * *

"I've got it!" Lance shouted, prepping his Plasmacaster to attack the creature.

But Knifehead had learned.

It ducked low and drove its bladed head straight through Gipsy's left shoulder, completely ripping the arm off.

Lance screamed.

Agony was clawing through his entire body, and his left arm wouldn't move.

He couldn't think, couldn't hear, couldn't see.

He could only scream.

"—ance!"

Carlos.

Kaiju.

Carlos needed help.

" _Left arm's gone cold, sir!"_ Matt's frantic voice carried through, but he wasn't talking to them.

"Come on, hermanito!" Carlos bellowed above the shrieking alarms and howling storm and roaring Kaiju. "Come on, Lance!"

The Kaiju recovered a lot faster than Lance did.

It went for Gipsy's head.

* * *

 _ **I also remember exactly what it felt like when Knifehead ripped my brother straight out of Gipsy's cockpit.**_

* * *

Knifehead's talons punctured through Gipsy's viewscreen.

"It's breached the hull!" Lance screamed into the comms, trying desperately to ignore the way his arm still wouldn't move, was still hurting so much he could barely breathe.

"Lance, listen to me!" Carlos ordered. "Listen to me, you've gotta—"

But whatever Carlos wanted to say, Lance would never hear.

Because Knifehead's talons curled around his harness and Carlos was gone.

* * *

 _ **We were still connected.**_

* * *

Lance screamed.

* * *

 _ **It felt like half of my soul had just died in a violent, agonizing way.**_

* * *

And screamed.

* * *

 _ **I almost blacked out, but that really wasn't an option for me.**_

* * *

And screamed.

* * *

 _ **There were still two million people living in that city behind me. And it was still my job to protect them.**_

* * *

Lance ground his teeth together and howled as the full neural load of Gipsy's control tore into his mind. He could dimly see blue electricity lashing around him, but his whole body was numb.

All he could feel was rage.

That Kaiju was _**dead.**_

* * *

 _ **It took them almost two days to find me and Gipsy after that fight—or what was left of Gipsy, as it were. I didn't stick around for very long after that.**_

 _ **Jaeger pilots come in pairs. Two make a whole. And like I told the Marshall the day I left, nobody wants a broken half of a whole.**_

* * *

"McClain…" Alfor sighed, running his hands through his hair, looking older and more tired than Lance had ever seen him. "Are you sure about this? You're one of our best, and quite frankly, I'm not sure we can afford to lose you."

"I'm sure, sir," Lance said. His once bright blue eyes were dull and grey. The young man's left arm was wrapped in bandages from his collarbone to his fingertips, and a brace pinned it to his chest to hold it in place as it healed from the massive lacerations and burns it had sustained in the attack. His stiff posture betrayed the multiple stitches, staples, and bandages holding his torso together, and the long scar down the right side of his face was a lurid line of red scar tissue and harsh black stitches. His normally tan skin was pale, and he was covered in bruises from head to toe.

That wasn't even beginning to touch on the mental trauma inflicted by watching his brother die and shouldering that much neural strain for such a long amount of time.

Alfor was honestly amazed that the young man was still standing at all.

"Piloting a Jaeger alone for that long is bound to leave some residual effects, son," the Marshall said quietly.

"No more than sharing in my brother's death then opening my eyes and realizing that I was still alive," Lance said with a bland smile that was nowhere near reaching his eyes.

Alfor winced slightly. "If this is really what you want, I can't—I won't—stop you. But we need more men like you, McClain, and—"

"This is what I really want, sir," the young man said quietly. "And all due respect, Marshall, but nobody wants a broken half of a whole."

Alfor gave a heavy sigh. "We owe you a debt that we can never repay," he said. "Anything you need, ask it and we'll see it done."

"Anything?"

"Anything," Alfor promised.

"I want to be left alone," Lance said softly. "I'm done. The Jaegers, the Kaiju…I'm done with all of it. I want to go home."

Alfor's mouth twisted, but he nodded. "It's the least we can do." He rose and held out his hand. "It's been an honor working with you, Ranger."

Lance offered him a thin ghost of the brilliant beam his smile used to be and clasped his hand firmly. "The honor was ours—" his face whitened, and his smile broke. "The honor was mine, sir," he all but whispered.

He walked out of the Marshall's office and never looked back.

* * *

 _ **I honestly don't remember most of the fight after Carlos was killed.**_

 _ **But I do remember blowing that son of a gun into a thousand smoldering pieces.**_

 _ **I have no idea how I made it to shore. They told me later that I controlled Gipsy, alone, for nearly twelve hours.**_

 _ **I was miles away from the Shatterdome. It was pure chance that I was even found at all.**_

 _ **An old man and his grandson, I was told.**_

 _ **Looking for old ships in the ice with a metal detector, of all things.**_

 _ **Instead, they found Gipsy Danger, staggering out of the sea like a drunkard.**_

 _ **One pilot.**_

 _ **Half a Jaeger.**_

 _ **Broken.**_

 _ **I was alive.**_

 _ **Not entirely sure I wanted to be, but there I was.**_

 _ **According to Mr. Thomas, when I crawled—honest to God crawled like an animal—out of Gipsy's shattered head, I wasn't responding to anything he said.**_

 _ **I don't remember.**_

 _ **He said that I made it about ten feet and collapsed completely.**_

 _ **He said that I was repeating my brother's name over and over and over, like a prayer or a mantra or a mindless plea.**_

 _ **I don't know.**_

 _ **I don't remember.**_

 _ **But I remember staring up at the cold, harsh, white sky and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Carlos was dead and it was all my fault.**_

 _ **I remember staring up at that cruel, unforgiving, frozen sky and swearing up and down on everything I had left and Gipsy's broken soul that I would never pilot a Jaeger again.**_

 _ **And for five years, I thought I would actually get my wish.**_

 _ **Only to find that—yet again—I was so very, very wrong.**_

* * *

 **So yeah. There's that.**

 **Hope you enjoyed, and keep an eye out for chapter two, either next Wednesday or next Thursday!**


	2. Of Rusted Hearts and Fractured Hopes

**Hello!**

 **Here is chapter two of my Voltron/Pacific Rim crossover. This one actually doesn't have any reviews yet, which *sniffle* hurtful. COME ON, PEOPLE!**

 **Reviews for me mean more stories for you!**

 **Hop to, folks!**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own a single person. There is some word-for-word dialogue, but I tried to alter it as much as I could.**

 **WARNINGS: Just my usual: emotions.**

* * *

 _Of Rusted Hearts and Fractured Hopes_

* * *

 _FIVE YEARS LATER_

* * *

Construction for the Wall of Life started bright and early, and today was no different. Lance dragged himself out of his nice, soft-as-bedrock, warm-as-a-meat-locker bunk and dragged on his clothes, looping his welding goggles around his neck.

 _Oh, the glamorous life of a construction worker,_ he thought wryly to himself.

He made his way out of the barracks and walked through the snow to the main building, surrounded by thousands of other souls doing the exact same thing. This morning, the ration cards from last week's work were being distributed, so everyone was actually on time for a change.

Their foreman, Ralph Carter, jumped up on a big crate and let out an ear-piercing whistle to get their attention.

"Alright, alright, let's go!" he yelled. "Ration cards, to the left! When you've got your card, get back over here! And hurry up! We've got eight hundred beams to get installed before noon, and another six after that! MOVE IT!"

Lance shook his head with a grin. Carter was a good guy, but he had a rather short fuse sometimes.

Finally, everybody had their card and had reassembled in front of Carter's crate.

"Alright, fellas!" he shouted. "I got good new and I got bad news. Which do you wanna hear first?"

"Bad news?" yelled Jimmy Sanders from near the front of the crowd. He was one of the men Lance worked with most often, and Lance counted him a good friend.

"Right," Carter winced. "Bad news. Three guys died yesterday on top of the Wall."

Murmurs rose from the crowd, and Lance closed his eyes and sighed. That was so _not_ how he'd wanted to start his day.

"What's the good news?" bellowed Clint Hollway, off to Lance's right.

"Good news is I've got three job openings," Carter yelled back. "Top of the Wall."

Lance groaned.

"Come on, come on!" Carter shouted. "Who wants to work? Who wants to eat?"

The 24-year-old sighed. _What the heck_.

Thirty minutes later, he was on top of the Wall, welding together the massive steel beams that would allegedly keep the Kaiju out.

He kept his doubts about that to himself.

Lance honestly liked his job. Yeah, it was hard and really _freaking_ cold and he'd singed his own hand more times than he could count. But the work was simple and straightforward. He was still protecting the people he'd sworn to protect, just in a different way.

He told everyone who asked that no, he did not miss piloting a Jaeger.

He was hoping that if he said it enough, he might start believing it, too.

* * *

Lance slung his gear into its rack and rolled his shoulders with a groan of relief. He winced briefly as his left shoulder gave a twinge, but that was nothing new. It felt good to lose the extra weight after nearly nine and a half hours of hard, cold work on top of the Wall, where there was nothing to block the icy winds.

"Lance!" Jimmy called, jogging around the corner. Clint was right behind him, and both of them were frowning.

"You're gonna want to see this, Kid," Clint said.

A pit of dread formed in his stomach as he jogged after his friends. The TV in the main room was on, and Lance swore as soon as he saw the screen.

" _I'm here in Sydney, Australia,"_ the reporter was saying, _"the location of the most recent Kaiju attack. The Kaiju, a monstrous Category 4, broke through the coastal wall just this morning."_

With a sinking heart, Lance watched the footage of the beast smashing through the metric tons of concrete and steel, roaring out its intention to kill and destroy everything in its way.

" _The Wall of Life, declared unbreachable by its builders, was destroyed in less than an hour,_ " the reporter said, and there was an immediate outcry from all the workers around him.

Clint sighed and dragged his hand down his face. "Why are we even building this Wall?" he muttered angrily. "It obviously ain't gonna do us no good."

"Th-that thing," Jimmy stammered, face white and eyes full of fear. "Th-that thing just went through the Wall. It went _straight through the Wall_. Like it wasn't even _there_."

"Yeah," Lance sighed, rubbing his left shoulder. "They do that."

" _Ironically_ ," the reporter continued, _"It was the recently decommissioned Jaeger, Striker Eureka, piloted by adoptive brothers Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane, that finally took the Kaiju down."_

Lance watched as the Mark-5 Jaeger ended the threat with brutal efficiency.

His left arm throbbed.

The news report cut to an interview with the younger of the two pilots, Keith Kogane.

" _Look_ ," he said shortly, mouth in a thin line and brows furrowed. " _They decommissioned the Jaeger program because of mediocre pilots. It's just that simple."_

Lance ground his teeth together and clenched his fists, fury mounting at the callous remark.

" _That's Striker Eureka's_ _tenth kill to date!"_ Kogane said, dark eyes flashing. " _It's a new record!"_

Lance turned on his heel and started shoving his way through the crowd. He really truly did _not_ want to hear more of this.

"Lance!" Jimmy scrambled after him, and Clint's heavy hand landed on his shoulder, but the big man only moved past him and forged a path.

"Thanks," he muttered, and Clint nodded.

" _But even after all this, you're still going to Hong Kong?"_ the reporter demanded, and Lance let out a long breath and walked faster.

Of course, he knew that all the Jaegers were being decommissioned. He knew that the Shatterdome in Hong Kong was the last one.

Everybody knew that.

The difference was that he didn't care.

" _Well, orders are orders,_ " Kogane said, sounding thoroughly irritated. _"What else am I supposed to do?"_

Lance made it to the edge of the crowd before he stopped dead, causing Jimmy to run into his back.

A military chopper was setting down outside, and Lance would've bet everything he had that it belonged to one Alfor Castle.

Sure enough, the stairs folded down and the Marshall stepped out. His white hair was a little longer now, but his beard was still immaculately trimmed. The Marshall's hair and beard had been completely white for as long as anybody could remember, but it never made him seem old, just…more regal. And up here by the Wall, surrounded by snow and ice, he looked as though he could be part of the scenery.

Lance decided to keep that last thought to himself.

He took a deep breath and sighed, his shoulders slumping. Then he patted Clint on the shoulder, offered Jimmy a strained smile, and walked out into the snow to face his past.

* * *

"Mr. McClain," Castle said, striding forward to meet him halfway.

"Marshall," Lance replied with a forced smile. He folded his hands and valiantly resisted the urge to run screaming in the opposite direction. "Looking sharp, sir."

"It's been awhile, hasn't it." It wasn't really a question, but Lance answered it anyway.

"Five years and four months, sir."

Alfor nodded. "I don't suppose you have a minute?"

Lance snorted. "I'd invite you to my office, but…" he gestured vaguely upward, towards the top of the Wall. "We might need to borrow your chopper to get there."

Alfor gave him a Look™, and Lance held up both hands with a grin, leading the Marshall to a more secluded area.

"You're a hard man to find, McClain," the Marshall said. "Anchorage, Sheldon Point, Nome—"

"Well," Lance cut him off, dramatically slumping down onto an old—whatever the heck this thing was. "Men like me travel with the Wall, Marshall. We gotta make a living somehow, and most of us do it by chasing shifts." He dropped all attempts at civility. "What do you want?"

Alfor took a deep breath. "I've spent the last six months activating everything I can get my hands on."

 _Oh, no._

"There's an old Jaeger."

 _He is not._

"A Mark-3."

… _He is._

"You may know it." Alfor's sharp eyes bore into his. "It needs a pilot."

 _Crap._

Lance snorted. "Let me guess. I was _not_ your first choice."

"You _are_ my first choice," Alfor said with a bland smile. "All the other Mark-3 pilots are dead."

Lance sucked in a sharp breath. He'd known that, of course, but still…they had been his friends.

They'd been Carlos's friends.

Carlos…

He shook his head sharply, forcing himself to his feet. "Look, Marshall…" he sighed. "I can't do this again. I told you when I left, I'm _done_. I can't…I can't have somebody else in my head. Not again. You _know_ what happened. We were still connected, Marshall. I cannot do that again, and I will not do that again." He met the man's eyes. "I'm sorry."

He strode towards the door, but the other man's voice stopped him cold.

"Haven't you heard, Mr. McClain?" he called, in that regal, powerful voice. "The world is coming to an end."

Lance tightened his jaw and turned to face him.

"So where would you rather die?!" Marshall Alfor Castle shouted. "Here?!"

His voice echoed around them, until all the voices of Lance's past were shouting with him.

" _Or in a Jaeger?!"_

* * *

 **So, there you go.**

 **Chapter two!**

 **Hope you enjoyed.**

 **Till next time!**


	3. Of Tarnished Memories and Fragile Smiles

**YIKES it's been a really long time since I updated literally anything! I'm so sorry!**

 **But here is chapter three of my Pacific Rim AU!**

 **I originally planned to make it longer before I published it, but...yeah. Anyway, here you go! I am working on chapter four, but I have no clue when it'll be done.**

 **WARNINGS: I think this one's good.**

 **DISCLAIMER: Again, I borrowed a lot of dialogue straight from the movie script. So if you see words or names that you recognize, they probably don't belong to me. I am just torturing these characters because I love them.**

 **ANYWAY ON TO THE CHAPTER!**

* * *

 _Of Tarnished Memories and Fragile Smiles_

* * *

Lance rested his head on the window, watching the rain run down the glass as the Hong Kong Shatterdome grew larger beneath them.

"You look absolutely thrilled to be here," Alfor said wryly from the seat across from him.

"Screw you," Lance retorted with no bite.

One white eyebrow went up. "I see your manners haven't improved in the last five years."

The response was so unexpected that Lance laughed in spite of himself. He peeled himself off the window and turned to look at the Marshall.

"'Leave me alone'," he said. "That's all I asked, Alfor. I still feel like I'm missing a part of me. I still turn around to say something to someone that's not there anymore. For God's sake, I still wake up screaming like I'm being torn apart more often than I sleep through the night."

Alfor sighed, suddenly looking older. "I know that, McClain," he said heavily. "But I need you, son. Like I told you the day you left, we can't afford to lose you. This is the end of the road, Mr. McClain. Personally, I'd rather have someone I trust behind the wheel."

A humorless smile pulled at Lance's mouth. "Understood, sir. I won't let you down."

* * *

The chopper set down, and Lance stepped out into the rain. He looked around the landing deck. There were forklifts and people running around everywhere, and it made him so homesick for his and Carlos' little Anchorage base that it _hurt._

"Mr. McClain!" Alfor called, and he jogged across the tarmac to where the Marshall was standing beneath a huge umbrella next to a young woman who couldn't have been anyone other than his daughter.

She had crystal blue eyes and pure white hair, which was expertly pinned up in a bun on the back of her head. She was tall, only a few inches shorter than Lance himself, and her skin was a rich tan. All in all, she was a beautiful young woman, but there was something in her eyes that told him that she was more than she appeared.

"Mr. McClain, this is Allura Castle, one of our brightest," the Marshall said. "She's also in charge of the Mark-3 restoration program. She personally interviewed and selected the candidates for your co-pilot."

Lance's eyebrows went up. "Oh, boy," he muttered, offering her a little smile.

She gave him a brief one in return, and tilted her head towards her father. " _I imagined him a bit differently,_ " she said in fluent Japanese.

Lance smirked. "Hey," he called, and she looked over. " _Is the real thing better or worse?"_ he grinned at her wide eyes and open mouth.

She shook her head briefly, and really smiled at him. " _My apologies, Mr. McClain_ ," she said. _"I've heard a great deal about you._ "

He nodded to her, a gesture of respect, and she returned it with another smile.

Castle sighed and gestured towards the Shatterdome. "Moving along. We'll get you a tour of the facilities first, McClain, and then Ms. Castle will show you to your Jaeger."

Lance couldn't tell if he was about to laugh or cry, so he just nodded wordlessly. He was also uncertain as to whether the lurch in his stomach was from excitement…or if it was his lunch making an encore appearance.

They stepped inside, and Lance's attention was immediately drawn to the containment units full of Kaiju organs almost filling the elevator to max capacity.

The Shatterdome doors were about to close when somebody started shouting.

"Hold doors!"

"Wait for us, please!"

Two more people spilled inside, a bouncy, energetic young woman and a middle-aged man. The young woman had a pair of glasses sliding down her nose, and her light brown ponytail was streaked with vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges. The man was a thin, nervous being, who was constantly going over his papers, examining the specimens around them, and muttering to himself.

"Please stay back!" the young woman said frantically, shaking the rain off herself. "Kaiju specimens are so incredibly, exceedingly rare! So look, but please please _please_ don't touch!"

"Mr. McClain, meet our research team," Alfor cut her off, standing at attention with his hands clasped behind his back. "Dr. Gottlieb and Dr. Geiszler."

"Aw, no," the young woman laughed. "Call me Ezor. Only my mother calls me Doctor." She shot them a blinding grin and shrugged off her coat. "Hey, Slav!" she called to her associate. "These are human beings. Why don't you say hello?"

Lance's eyes widened, and he had to bite his tongue to stifle his laugh at the sheer amount of sarcasm dripping off her words.

"I have asked you not to refer to me by my first name around others," the man said primly, turning around and pushing his hood off. "I am a doctor with over ten years of—"

"Ten years of decorated experience!" Ezor said in a wheezy, raspy voice that was clearly intended as a mockery of Slav. "I am so very sorry!" she rolled her eyes. "Geez."

She pulled off her sweater, leaving her in a tank top, and Lance immediately found his attention captured by the tattoos spiraling up her arms.

Kaiju.

He saw one that he knew.

"Is that Yamarashi?" he asked quietly.

Ezor's eyes lit up. "Ah! You know your Kaiju! Yeah, that's Yamarashi. You've got a really good eye, mister…uh…"

"Lance," Lance gave her a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Lance McClain. My brother and I took him down in 2017."

"Did you know that this little Kaiju was actually one of the biggest Category 3's ever recorded?" Ezor was bouncing on the tips of her toes. "He was two thousand five hundred tons of _awesome_!" she clasped her hands and sighed happily.

Lance, the Marshall, and Allura all just looked at her.

She stopped bouncing, dropping her hands and blinking rapidly. "Or awful," she amended. "Awful. Really, really terrible—"

"Please excuse her," Slav put in. "She's a Kaiju groupie. She loves them."

"Shut up, Slav, I do _not,_ " Ezor snapped over her shoulder. "I am _fascinated_ by them. There's a difference, you uncultured swine." She started bouncing again. "And, unlike most folks, I actually want to see one _that isn't dead_. I think that would be amazing. I want to see it alive, and up close."

The elevator slid to a stop, and the Marshall and his daughter left without another word. Lance reached out and put a hand on Ezor's shoulder, bringing her excited bouncing to a stop.

"No," he told her. "You really don't."

Then he turned and walked out of the elevator without looking back.

* * *

 **I know it's super short and I'm really sorry about that, but hopefully I'll be publishing a brand-new story on Saturday! So keep your eyes peeled for that.**

 **Thank you guys so much for all of your support. You have no idea just how much you all mean to me!**

 **See you soon!**


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